I was expecting this. I’ve been careful to try and hide my reaction from her, but she’s not stupid. She knows I’m not going to take a couple of rabbits away and then leave her to it. I could just go. I could explain what’s going to happen next, then return to my van and call the sanctuary, but I can’t leave without looking in the larder. If there’s an animal in there, and if it dies because I didn’t act, I’d never forgive myself.

“I’d like to look in the larder, please, Joan.”

“No.” She shakes her head violently. “No.”

“Please. I want to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I think you do.”

I reach for the door handle and two things happen at once. As I step into the larder, a swarm of flies hits me in the face like a buzzing black cloud, and the door slams shut behind me. I cover my face with my hands as the flies buzz around me, landing on my arms, my hands, my hair, my neck. The air is thick with the stench of death. I gag repeatedly into the crook of my elbow. With no window, it’s pitch black apart from the pale pool of light at the bottom of the door. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, but then I see it, lying at my feet and swarming with maggots: the decomposing body of a dog.

I reach for the doorknob but it’s gone, lying at my feet next to the remains of the dog. It must have fallen off when the door slammed shut. I barge the door with my shoulder then kick it as hard as I can. It holds fast.

“Mrs Wilkinson?” I pound on the door with one fist, my face still buried in the crook of my elbow. There are flies in my ears, in my hair, creeping down the front of my polo shirt.

“Mrs Wilkinson!” I bang again. “Joan, you need to pick up the doorknob on your side and feed the pole part back into the hole so I can reattach the knob on my side. Joan? Are you there?”

I stop banging and listen, but I can’t hear a thing above the drone of the flies.

Panic rises in my chest and I take a run at the door, smashing into it with the full weight of my body.

I’m about to shout Joan’s name again when my back pocket starts to vibrate.

“Sheila!” I press the phone to my ear. “I’m at twenty-seven Allinson Road. I’m trapped. She’s locked me in! She’s going to hurt me, Sheila. Please, please, get me out.”

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Five Years Earlier